Area 51 notes, Apr. 21, 2011

We reviewed the recommendations of the Curricular Technology Team, which was charged with evaluating Learning Management Systems for the College. The Team recommended we adopt Moodle, and, after a lengthy discussion, the ADs endorsed this recommendation, with the stipulation that the system be implemented in a hosted environment. Mike will submit this recommendation and our comments to Alison Byerly and President’s Staff for approval.

We followed this by discussing how LIS sets policies and standards for levels of support for applications used across campus. In order to provide support for core applications and maintain a high-level of service, we need to establish clear guidelines concerning what LIS can and cannot support. This may mean limiting support to specific applications, or to specific versions of applications, and discontinuing support for applications and/or versions that have fallen out of widespread use. Once these levels have been established, we will need to work to help people migrate their applications to versions or tools that remain supported. Mary has agreed to prepare a draft framework for support guidelines and policies which we will review. Ultimately, Mike will bring this to President’s Staff for approval, since LIS will need their backing in order to enforce any guidelines we establish.